Something that has bugged me for some time now is the use of the term PC to describe Windows, in the time we live in PC is such an insanely broad term why do developers still say PC?
Wikipedia describes the term PC as:
So if you take that into consideration if someone says "PC" should it not work on any general-purpose computer? This is why when I see "Available on PC" my heart fills with dread. It would be like saying "available for Playstation", well which one?
We have Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and let's face it Ubuntu Linux mainly even though people of other distro's don't like to admit it and will probably jump down my throat for even stating it, but Ubuntu is the single most popular distro around, it is the only distro Steam officially supports for a reason. That's a whole 'nother argument altogether though so try not to focus on that too much.
These are the three main desktop operating systems yet a lot of developers are still keen to say things like "Available for PC & Mac". Every time this comes up I think to myself "what PC" or "what Mac version?". It can be quite bad for Mac too, Mac describes all of Apple's Mac computers so it requires you to dig further, going back again to the "available on Playstation" thing. Well which version of Mac?
Now when they say "Available for PC, Mac & Linux" that is moving further away into insanity, is a Mac not a personal computer? Is Linux on your desktop PC somehow not a PC either? Pretty sure my Nexus 4 phone is PC.
I ask you the community, how can we get developers to start at least saying "Windows, Mac & Linux", the term PC has stood for too long, it's time to get it retired. It's not a correct way to list platforms and a lot of us already know it. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Wikipedia describes the term PC as:
QuoteA personal computer (PC) is a general-purpose computer.
So if you take that into consideration if someone says "PC" should it not work on any general-purpose computer? This is why when I see "Available on PC" my heart fills with dread. It would be like saying "available for Playstation", well which one?
We have Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and let's face it Ubuntu Linux mainly even though people of other distro's don't like to admit it and will probably jump down my throat for even stating it, but Ubuntu is the single most popular distro around, it is the only distro Steam officially supports for a reason. That's a whole 'nother argument altogether though so try not to focus on that too much.
These are the three main desktop operating systems yet a lot of developers are still keen to say things like "Available for PC & Mac". Every time this comes up I think to myself "what PC" or "what Mac version?". It can be quite bad for Mac too, Mac describes all of Apple's Mac computers so it requires you to dig further, going back again to the "available on Playstation" thing. Well which version of Mac?
Now when they say "Available for PC, Mac & Linux" that is moving further away into insanity, is a Mac not a personal computer? Is Linux on your desktop PC somehow not a PC either? Pretty sure my Nexus 4 phone is PC.
I ask you the community, how can we get developers to start at least saying "Windows, Mac & Linux", the term PC has stood for too long, it's time to get it retired. It's not a correct way to list platforms and a lot of us already know it. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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It would be no use to educate people what a real PC is. Just like we use Linux to mean different things (I mean a lot of things), there is nothing wrong referring to Linux as Linux and not as PC (its just a
name used to indicate something). We don't need to be caught up in the name, because it is far better if someone mentioned Linux and meant Linux than the if someone mentioned PC and meant nothing in regards to Linux.
Anyways, it would be better if people started saying Windows, Mac and Linux. However, I don't have problems when people specifically mention Linux and use whatever term to refer to others.
name used to indicate something). We don't need to be caught up in the name, because it is far better if someone mentioned Linux and meant Linux than the if someone mentioned PC and meant nothing in regards to Linux.
Anyways, it would be better if people started saying Windows, Mac and Linux. However, I don't have problems when people specifically mention Linux and use whatever term to refer to others.
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But it would help the casual PC gamer at large to use the same icon as the case badges. If the sticker on your laptop looks like this your OS can run this game that has been tested to run on stuff as weak as Intel GMA IGPs.
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One word: Apple.This! I've written it a while ago on this site that it was Apple who got this nonsense started. It irks me as well that this has become the marketing standard now as it is just plain wrong from a technical perspective. It was pretty smart however on Apple's side, as it made them look positively different while at the same time lumping the other options (Windows, and preemptively Linux) together and then making this group look bad.
"Hi I'm a mac," "and I'm a PC."
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I agree with you here,
For users PC was always Windows, most of them don't even know about other OS's.
And while in truth Mac IS a PC - there should be some difference in names for those OS's, and while it should be "Windows and MacOS", historically DOS was there first.
And as we know DOS was installed on all IBM's PC's at that time and it still wasn't DOS vs Mac at that time, it was a PC vs Mac.
It's similar to the stupid fact that even today we keep calling "Native Americans" in America, "Indians" even trough we know for centuries now that America isn't India and American natives aren't Indians -we just damn used to that misleading name.
For users PC was always Windows, most of them don't even know about other OS's.
And while in truth Mac IS a PC - there should be some difference in names for those OS's, and while it should be "Windows and MacOS", historically DOS was there first.
And as we know DOS was installed on all IBM's PC's at that time and it still wasn't DOS vs Mac at that time, it was a PC vs Mac.
It's similar to the stupid fact that even today we keep calling "Native Americans" in America, "Indians" even trough we know for centuries now that America isn't India and American natives aren't Indians -we just damn used to that misleading name.
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Ubuntu is the single most popular distro around
No matter how many times I asked, no one was able to produce any substantial numbers, or explain methodology which demonstrates that Ubuntu is the most used Linux distro. Surely Canonical likes to hype it in most arrogant fashion, but hype does not equal to a fact. So until this is actually demonstrated, I don't buy this argument.
It is the only distro Steam officially supports for a reason.
I'm not sure what their reasons were - Valve didn't really explain it clearly. And in the future, I'd expect them to drop Ubuntu as a base, if they want to stay in touch with the majority of the Linux world which said strong no to Mir, and will use Wayland.
On the matter of "PC" being used to describe Windows - that's very annoying indeed. Complain to developers who do it, and point out the weirdness of such usage. It's an unfortunate artifact left by the years of insane domination of Windows. It will get better, and people will stop using it this way. But it will take time.
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We have Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and let's face it Ubuntu Linux mainly even though people of other distro's don't like to admit it and will probably jump down my throat for even stating it, but Ubuntu is the single most popular distro around, it is the only distro Steam officially supports for a reason. That's a whole 'nother argument altogether though so try not to focus on that too much.
I am sorry, but if you did not want people to jump down your throat why did you even bring it up? There is stating an on topic opinion in an editorial and then there is flame bait.
Agreed.
While I think PC can be misleading, I don't think it's much of a problem. I bet the next generation, most of which will have never of had a "home phone" will find our use of the term "phone" to describe our mobile pocket computers confusing if they thought about how it undermines it's numerous other capabilities, but they probably won't. If a bathroom has no bath, I still call it a bathroom without pause. It's just a trait of language, I think.
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QuoteSo you shoot down one guess, Shmerl, that Ubuntu is the most popular distro, then fire off two wild guesses of your own, that Steam will drop Ubuntu as a base, and that no one else will ever use Mir.
It is the only distro Steam officially supports for a reason.
I'm not sure what their reasons were - Valve didn't really explain it clearly. And in the future, I'd expect them to drop Ubuntu as a base, if they want to stay in touch with the majority of the Linux world which said strong no to Mir, and will use Wayland.
Since we're speculating wildly, here's my wild guesses. Valve will continue to back Ubuntu for the simple reason that they're the only Linux distro which is both focused on the consumer space AND has a company/resources behind it.
Also, Mir. Yeah, now that's a super-heated topic, but really it's too early to tell. If I were wearing my cynical hat though, I'd suggest that Canonical's earlier backing of Wayland, only to drop it for Mir was suspiciously close to the point that Valve got involved with Linux after seeing how Windows 8 was turning out. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Mir was born so that Canonical can work more closely with Valve's vision of SteamOS in a way that they couldn't with a community run display protocol such as Wayland.
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We have Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and let's face it Ubuntu Linux mainly even though people of other distro's don't like to admit it and will probably jump down my throat for even stating it, but Ubuntu is the single most popular distro around, it is the only distro Steam officially supports for a reason. That's a whole 'nother argument altogether though so try not to focus on that too much.
I am sorry, but if you did not want people to jump down your throat why did you even bring it up? There is stating an on topic opinion in an editorial and then there is flame bait. I could go into a huge rant about the difference between a plurality and an actual majority, and how Ubuntu most definitely does not have an absolute majority and games the system through it's plurality status, but I will pay enough deference to the main point of the article to just leave this here.
I bring it up as it's my opinion, an editorial is an opinion piece remember. It's also coming off the fact that Ubuntu on the Steam survey has ~0.8% of users, Mint is the only one to come close with around ~0.1% which is also based on Ubuntu. Bearing in mind we are a gaming site a gaming survey is a good measure.
Show me hard facts to prove otherwise than Ubuntu being the most popular distro and I may believe it.
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We have Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and let's face it Ubuntu Linux mainly even though people of other distro's don't like to admit it and will probably jump down my throat for even stating it, but Ubuntu is the single most popular distro around, it is the only distro Steam officially supports for a reason. That's a whole 'nother argument altogether though so try not to focus on that too much.
I am sorry, but if you did not want people to jump down your throat why did you even bring it up? There is stating an on topic opinion in an editorial and then there is flame bait. I could go into a huge rant about the difference between a plurality and an actual majority, and how Ubuntu most definitely does not have an absolute majority and games the system through it's plurality status, but I will pay enough deference to the main point of the article to just leave this here.
I bring it up as it's my opinion, an editorial is an opinion piece remember. It's also coming off the fact that Ubuntu on the Steam survey has ~0.8% of users, Mint is the only one to come close with around ~0.1% which is also based on Ubuntu. Bearing in mind we are a gaming site a gaming survey is a good measure.
Show me hard facts to prove otherwise than Ubuntu being the most popular distro and I may believe it.
I think what Hamish was trying to say, or maybe I'm just projecting, that the Ubuntu mention was kind of unneeded. Even if Ubuntu is the most popular, to which I'd agree, I don't see what it has to do with article.
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For me I feel it was needed, most newbies who hear of Linux will probably think of Ubuntu anyway. Every single person I have ever asked in "real life" has only heard of Ubuntu and I talk to people about Linux quite regularly.
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So you shoot down one guess, Shmerl, that Ubuntu is the most popular distro, then fire off two wild guesses of your own, that Steam will drop Ubuntu as a base, and that no one else will ever use Mir.
Since we're speculating wildly, here's my wild guesses. Valve will continue to back Ubuntu for the simple reason that they're the only Linux distro which is both focused on the consumer space AND has a company/resources behind it.
That's another myth which Canonical likes to PR. Firstly, Canonical is not profitable lately, so I'd question their resources in the long run. Secondly, there are several other distros which are focused on consumers and work with partnerships (with Dell and others). So, let's stop tossing myths around.
About why Valve could drop Ubuntu - it doesn't make any sense from practical point. When Ubuntu can remain the only isolated distro using Mr, why should Valve risk making it their primary base?
Also, Mir. Yeah, now that's a super-heated topic, but really it's too early to tell. If I were wearing my cynical hat though, I'd suggest that Canonical's earlier backing of Wayland, only to drop it for Mir was suspiciously close to the point that Valve got involved with Linux after seeing how Windows 8 was turning out. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Mir was born so that Canonical can work more closely with Valve's vision of SteamOS in a way that they couldn't with a community run display protocol such as Wayland.
Canonical never hid the fact what was driving it - their Ubuntu Touch and mobile push. For some really weird reason, unlike Jolla they found that using Wayland didn't fit their mobile plans. Those reasons were surely non technical. Valve has nothing to do with Ubuntu Touch and doesn't benefit from it in any way. It would be utterly stupid for them to back up Canonical's homemade display server making them supporting the majority of the Linux distros harder. Anyway, regarding actual SteamOS we'll have to wait and see. For now they are surely going to use X.org anyway, so the point above isn't critically important (yet). This will become an issue when EGL drivers from Nvidia (and/or AMD) for Wayland (and Mir) will be available.
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For me I feel it was needed, most newbies who hear of Linux will probably think of Ubuntu anyway. Every single person I have ever asked in "real life" has only heard of Ubuntu and I talk to people about Linux quite regularly.
That's my experience too. But since I exclusively use Ubuntu at home and work, it's probably not that surprising! The people I talk to about Linux are usually only talking about it because of my association with it, against the company policy of Windows or OSX.
I reckon I'm creating my own little bubble there.
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Show me hard facts to prove otherwise than Ubuntu being the most popular distro and I may believe it.
No, you claimed (like Canonical usually does), that Ubuntu is the most popular distro. So it's up to you to prove it if you want your claim to be more than just a guess. If it's just a guess - then we can guess anything. Valve's numbers aren't useful, since they chose Ubuntu as their sole supported target.
For me I feel it was needed, most newbies who hear of Linux will probably think of Ubuntu anyway. Every single person I have ever asked in "real life" has only heard of Ubuntu and I talk to people about Linux quite regularly.
I know a lot of people who use Ubuntu. I know a lot of people who use openSUSE as well, or Debian for example. That doesn't however indicate global popularity and I won't use that as a metric to evaluate any market share. Statistics can be very misleading when the numbers are extrapolated way beyond what they are useful for.
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Certainly, more focused editorials without off-topic rants would be more efficient than asking not to start flames.
The PC term has come to mean nothing but the Wikipedia definition is the closest to what it could mean. Todays computers aren't even compatible anymore with the original IBM PC and they don't even run MS-DOS anymore. Even more funny, those games wouldn't run on anything close to the original IBM PC or any later clone.
Obviously, publishers (and some developers) are using the term PC to refer to Windows. Why? Maybe because they prefer shorter names and that's the best they could make up, I don't know.
The same happens with the term GNU/Linux that journalists prefer as just Linux. It's confusing, it's technically incorrect, but still preferred. Why? Same answer as above maybe.
Usually, journalists don't try to be technically correct, they may even ignore the technical details about what they're reporting or simply prefer to use what's common talk although it's plainly incorrect. Maybe publishers take on that trend.
The PC term has come to mean nothing but the Wikipedia definition is the closest to what it could mean. Todays computers aren't even compatible anymore with the original IBM PC and they don't even run MS-DOS anymore. Even more funny, those games wouldn't run on anything close to the original IBM PC or any later clone.
Obviously, publishers (and some developers) are using the term PC to refer to Windows. Why? Maybe because they prefer shorter names and that's the best they could make up, I don't know.
The same happens with the term GNU/Linux that journalists prefer as just Linux. It's confusing, it's technically incorrect, but still preferred. Why? Same answer as above maybe.
Usually, journalists don't try to be technically correct, they may even ignore the technical details about what they're reporting or simply prefer to use what's common talk although it's plainly incorrect. Maybe publishers take on that trend.
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Oh look I started a distro war by going slightly offtopic in my article, have people still not grown up in the community yet?
I will just leave this here, one of my favourite images of all time, BEHOLD!
It doesn't matter if I stated what I believe is the most popular distro, there isn't a single measure to determin it, it's just what I believe, I will try to not go so off-topic in my editorials in future.
Seriously though, distro wars have to stop, it's pathetic.
I will just leave this here, one of my favourite images of all time, BEHOLD!
It doesn't matter if I stated what I believe is the most popular distro, there isn't a single measure to determin it, it's just what I believe, I will try to not go so off-topic in my editorials in future.
Seriously though, distro wars have to stop, it's pathetic.
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A few switched already from "available for PC" to "available on Windows, Mac ..".
I think that will take some time to take the change, but we'll get there. Latest when our phones are our personal computers, and we're heading that way.
I think that will take some time to take the change, but we'll get there. Latest when our phones are our personal computers, and we're heading that way.
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Kids these days... Not everything in existence happened in the las 5 years and Apple is not to blame for this one, nor most of the things they are used as a scapegoat for.One word: Apple.This! I've written it a while ago on this site that it was Apple who got this nonsense started. It irks me as well that this has become the marketing standard now as it is just plain wrong from a technical perspective. It was pretty smart however on Apple's side, as it made them look positively different while at the same time lumping the other options (Windows, and preemptively Linux) together and then making this group look bad.
"Hi I'm a mac," "and I'm a PC."
Thus a history lesson is in order.
As was pointed out before. PC has been used to describe every x86 box running DOS or Windows ever since IBM created the first PC, the IBM Personal Computer 5150 32 years ago. Though the term "Personal Computer" goes back at least as far as 1972, possibly older.
It stuck because every knockoff used the claim that it was "PC compatible".
TL;DR Blame IBM or Compaq.
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About why Valve could drop Ubuntu - it doesn't make any sense from practical point. When Ubuntu can remain the only isolated distro using Mr, why should Valve risk making it their primary base?
Simple, if 80% of the Linux gamers/Valve Linux customers are using Ubuntu and therefore will be using Mir then not supporting it is shooting yourself in the foot.
If you don't like that situation do something about it, until then Ubuntu is THE target to build Linux native games against and other distros will have to adapt to Ubuntu if they want to keep their gamers happy.
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Oh look I started a distro war by going slightly offtopic in my article, have people still not grown up in the community yet?
It doesn't matter if I stated what I believe is the most popular distro, there isn't a single measure to determin it, it's just what I believe, I will try to not go so off-topic in my editorials in future.
Seriously though, distro wars have to stop, it's pathetic.
Agreed. Theres still way too much nerd rage in the OSS community and it has never once served us well.
Until that nerd rage is finally extinguished Linux as a Desktop OS is destined to languish forever in the 1% bracket. And I say this as someone who has been using Linux for 15 years, it's not as bad as it oncewas where the reply to half of my questions was "RTFM n00b" but thats the attitude that killed the first wave of commercial gaming on Linux, lets not repeat the mistakes of the past.
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About why Valve could drop Ubuntu - it doesn't make any sense from practical point. When Ubuntu can remain the only isolated distro using Mr, why should Valve risk making it their primary base?
Simple, if 80% of the Linux gamers/Valve Linux customers are using Ubuntu and therefore will be using Mir then not supporting it is shooting yourself in the foot.
First of all, Valve didn't have any numbers before they rolled out Linux support (it didn't exist for them) and afterwards numbers were always skewed because they said Ubuntu only is officially supported distro, so that 80% don't mean much to estimate what users could otherwise use.
Secondly, that's not the point anyway, since we were talking about Seam OS, not about what distros users install Steam on. Steam OS is Valve's creation and whatever users use now is irrelevant to what they will decide to base it on. What's important is common middleware, efficient development and future compatibility. Mir is not a common middleware (and I doubt it will ever be, time will tell). The bulk of development in the graphics stack happens in Wayland, not in Mir. So, Valve's decision is pretty obvious here, unless they want to shoot themselves in the foot and say - we are going to ignore all that, and use Canonical's Ubuntu only solution.
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